Yusuf Muhammad, was the winner of Living Room category and joint overall winner. His Yu Type design sits on the computer keyboard and allows ‘hunt and peck’ two fingered typists the opportunity to increase their speed and confidence. He is now thinking about developing the idea and hopes to include features like spell checking and predictive text to increase its appeal. Judges praised the way he addressed a social issue of an aging population within the urban context.

In response of this question “What next for your design?”, Yusuf says:

“I’m definitely going to set aside a fair chunk of the prize to develop it. There’s a lot of people who would benefit – 79% of people who use a keyboard hunt and peck, disproportionately older people and first time users, and even dyslexic users. I’m dyslexic and I would definitely benefit from a device like this.”

Dominic Hargreaves, was winner of the Garage category and a joint overall winner. His concept for a bike lock which sits at first storey level on the front of a building is designed to hoist bikes out of the reach of potential thieves. Along with Yusuf Muhammad, judges felt that Dominic’s design would benefit the most from money to develop the idea further.

In response of this question “How are you going to develop your design?”, Dominic says:

“The initial prototype was just for personal use. I would really like produce a public one, which would lead to a much better design. At a train station it would encourage commuting and free up the roads and the tube.”

Graeme Davies took the first prize in the Kitchen category. His Quicksnap icetray design solves the problem of dropping two ice cubes on the floor for every one you manage to get in the glass by creating an undercut to release individual ice cubes. Judge Lance Scott called it “An innovative solution to a very simple but annoying problem”. Graeme, who has a patent on the design, is looking to have it on sale by the summer.

In response of this question “Did you feel confident in your design?”, Graeme says:

“I think what’s really been good about it is that the design is really simple. People appreciate and get it straight away. That’s probably what made it stand out. The next stage will be tooling and hopefully we will get it in production by the summer.”

Source : Toyota iQ

PRESS RELEASE

IFR Automotive reveals track car

A new sports car boasting luxury fitments and high performance has been announced by engineering consultancy IFR Automotive.

Known as the Aspid, IFR has sought to create a track car with everyday levels of usability and, importantly for cars like this – reliability.

It’s also a technology showcase for demonstrating the company’s design and engineering capabilities.

Aspid prototypes feature a 2-litre engine; either naturally aspirated to deliver 270bhp or supercharged to 400bhp.

Power is delivered to the rear wheels through a manual 6-speed gearbox and limited-slip differential.

Use of aluminium and carbon fibre has resulted in weight of just 700kg and the resulting 570bhp-per-tonne power-to-weight ratio enables 62mph (100km/h) in 2.8 seconds and 100mph (160km/h) in 5.9 seconds.

“The Aspid has been engineered to deliver a high level of driving pleasure,” says company founder, managing director and automotive engineer Ignacio Fern?ez Rodriquez, whose initials give IFR Automotive its name.

Formerly with Prodrive, Rodriquez subsequently joined the Mitsubishi World Rally Championship team as race engineer for Alister McRae and Fran?s Delecour.

Rodriquez founded IFR Automotive in 2003 and began work immediately on the new sports car project, while handling confidential car and commercial vehicle assignments from industry clients.

With a long list of options, and each one tailored to the precise needs of each individual customer the anticipated base price is £75,000 and upwards per Aspid.

The car will be displayed at the British International Motor Show in London docklands from Wednesday 23 July to Sunday 3 August 2008.

via [AutoBlog]

From : Safrett via MocoLoco

The Intended user is primarily the single person and or commuter, where time is precious and preparing a meal is more of a chore than an experience to be savoured. Families, with busy schedules could benefit, together with wider ranging demographics.

Taking styling cues from current trends the concept aims to deliver a contemporary take on kitchen appliances and remove those initial semantic values associated with kitchen appliances, to give an air of ?what is that??

Looks like we have more choices for our kitchen in the future, modular kitchen by Fevzi Karaman is still a concept, hopefully this compact cooker by Alex Bradley can be mass produced.

Designer : Alex Bradley via Dezeen

According to the company, the key to making this usable is what it calls pseudo-transparency: by overlaying an image of the user?s hands onto the screen, the illusion of the mobile device itself being semitransparent is created. This pseudo-transparency allows users to accurately acquire targets while not occluding the screen with their fingers and hand.

According to Microsoft in initial studies, results suggest that many users found touching on the back to be preferable to touching on the front, due to reduced occlusion, higher precision, and the ability to make multi-finger input.

Actually I do have a problem with touchscreen, I really hate about how many of my finger prints are left on the screen. Microsoft LucidTouch might not solve that problem since this is still a touchscreen, but at least it will reduce the finger prints on my screen problem.

Designer : Microsoft